Failure

And again.  Shoes in focus, face out.  It happens in every picture.  I'm more than miffed.  I called the fellow who made the camera last night.  He lives two hours away, so I am going to drive the camera to him and stay the night at his house.  That is what I said, at least.  If he tells me there is nothing wrong with the camera, I am going to sell it but I don't see a way in hell that the problem is with me.  Not the same thing every time.  

Piss, shit, fuck, goddamn.  

That's my mom on Thanksgiving just before we went to the neighbor's house.  She'll be 92 in a minute, just over a week before Christmas, but we don't feel like celebrating.  Don't know what it is.  Maybe it is the news.  Maybe it is the weather.  Maybe it is something else.  But this will be a low-key December for us.  

Old mom. 

Apparently, the pic I showed you yesterday was the one I messed up on, but I think I probably like it better.  Oh. . . but look closely--feet in focus, head hardly.  I'm not sure this is good Christmas decoration, but people celebrate how they will, I guess.  

I went to bed last night feeling fine, but I've woken up this morning feeling as if something is "coming on."  Head, chest, throat.  It is that time of year, but I've had all my shots.  Nothing protects you from everything, though.  It is another gloomy day, cool and damp and cloudy.  I sink into the gloom.  Maybe I'll eschew all movement and spend the day inside.  Maybe I just feel like "fuck everything."  I've been feeling that way for awhile.  Still, I have kept myself moving.  I haven't napped in days.  Indeed, I've been pretty productive, but so far, I have found no joy.  These fouled up photographs haven't helped.  4x5 film is expensive.  Shooting with the Liberator is complex.  Developing takes time.  I see the negatives are exposed right and have high hopes.  Then I scan them and weep.  

Maybe I'm on the verge of a mental collapse.  A "breakdown," as they used to say.  Maybe I just have SAD.  

The cat is at the door.  She stays here most of the time now, staring in.  She watches me.  She's there when I get in the car to go somewhere, and she is there when I get back.  She's waited too long, though, to be a domestic kitty.  But damn, she makes me feel guilty somehow.  

That's all I got, as they say in the hills.  Just a desultory report of failure and gloom.  

Don't let it bring you down.  Sometimes it takes the misery of others to make us feel better.  Right?  Wait. . . that can't be said.  

I'd better go take some Umcka.  I think I'll go back to bed.